Noticeboard

Seasonal Influenza Update

You will no doubt be aware that seasonal flu in now circulating the area. Flu vaccination appointments are still available to book for those patients eligible to have a vaccination. To book your appointment, log on to your online account or contact the surgery on 01769 580295.

Most cases of flu can be treated effectively at home. Patients are encourages to self-care, seek advice on treating symptoms via reputable online resources such as NHS Choices, or to seek advice from a local Pharmacist before contacting the GP.

Patients should be advised to:

Rest and sleep

Keep warm

Take paracetamol or ibuprofen to lower your temperature and treat aches and pains

So, more importantly, what can I do about it?

i.e.: if we can change some of these things we can improve our risk of having heart/circulatory disease.

So what are the benefits if I try to live a healthier lifestyle?

You can use this Qrisk web calculator (http://qrisk.org/index.php) to see how altering things about you might lower your risk of heart disease: for instance ... you could see what happens if you stopped smoking or lost weight.

You can skip halfway down to the smiley faces diagram ... the first few pages are a bit technical.

Looking at the illustrations you will see that the benefits of statins increase as your risk increases.

This is why we definitely recommend them for the high risk people who have had heart attacks and strokes or diabetes (over 40 yrs old) or familial hypercholesterolemia.

Most of us will fall in the 20% risk group and that means if 100 of us take statins for 10 yrs then 5 of us will be 'saved' from having an 'event', sadly 15 of us will have an event anyway and the remaining 80 of us will not have an event whether we take pills or not!

So you can see, it comes down to an individual choice and perception of risk.

The majority of people taking statins for so called 'primary prevention' (ie they have not had a heart attack or stroke) will take them for no benefit. But you might be one of the 5 in 100 that does benefit and so you may decide it is worth taking the Statin tablets for 10 yrs.

Some people do not like taking daily tablets. Some are fearful of side effects. You may feel that it is more natural to reduce your risk by lifestyle factors.